Ani Shorts: A Very Chowder Christmas

By Steve Fritz December 4, 2008 01:46pm ET

Ani Shorts: A Very Chowder Christmas

One could say CH Greenblatt has lots to be thankful for. The creator of
Chowder had a debut season most creators only dream of. Launched a year
ago, it has become one of the new flagship series on Cartoon Network,
anchoring their Har-Har-Thursday block of programs.

“I’m thrilled that people are discovering the show and are really
getting into it,” says Greenblatt. “I keep running into people who tell
me their kids love it. We all work very hard here to make these as good
as we can, so of course it feels great when people respond positively
to it. It helps keep us going, knowing that we have high expectations
to meet. There are a lot more episodes on the way and we’re at an
interesting place.”
One of those interesting places is the first Chowder
holiday special. Entitled “Hey, Hey It’s Knishmas!,” said special
debuts tonight at 8:00 p.m. (eastern). It tells the tale of how the
denizens of Greenblatt’s mystical/mirth-ical city of Marzipan spend
their time under the Gristletoe and anticipate the annual coming of the
worm-like Knish Kringle.
There’s catch about having a visit from the jolly old saint though.
Everyone must build him a Shminger Bread house. If it likes it, he’ll
literally spew up a gift your heart desires. If it doesn’t, Kringle
wrecks your home.
This doesn’t put Chowder’s master, the great chef Mung Daal (voiced by
Annie Award nominee Dwight Schultz) in the Knishmas spirit. The one
thing he’s never been able to do in his centuries-spanning career as a
cook is make a Shminger Bread home. At the same time, Daal doesn’t want
to disappoint his young protégé. This leads to a situation that fans of
one other holiday tale will be quite familiar with; O Henry’s “Gift of
the Magi.”
“Definitely,” Greenblatt concurs. “The hardest part about making a
funny holiday special is deciding where the emotional heart of the
story lies. So I wanted to create a story where Mung and Chowder decide
to sacrifice their own desires to make the other person happy. It’s a
classic blueprint that works very well for the relationship they have.”

The payoff? Mung Daal makes a deal with the devil. Or to put it more accurately, his arch enemy Endive.
“The original concept for Endive was that she was basically Martha
Stewart,” says Greenblatt. “She has a strictly defined set of rules on
how things work; everything has to be perfectly done to be correctly.
And Mung infuriates her because he cooks from his heart, going with
whatever crazy way he thinks feels best.
“As we started writing her, as is usually the case, she developed into
something more. I wanted her to have a bit of Mrs. Haversham from Great
Expectations, and you see some of that in “Chowder’s Girlfriend.” Ms.
Haversham was left at the wedding alter and never got over it, spending
the rest of her life twisting a younger girl to hurt men the way she
was hurt.
“Endive was really fleshed out by William Reiss,” says Greenblatt. “He
knows how find the humanity in everyone and turn their character flaws
into comedy. Under his writing, she became the glamorous ogre she is
now. She’s a big beast of a woman who puts on airs of being refined but
unleashes her fury upon Mung. We decided that when the two of them get
together, they revert to being children. The more we write her, the
more we find she’s just a lonely woman, looking for someone to love
her. But her fear of being hurt keeps driving men away.”
Of course, wherever Endive lurks, her family-way protégé Panini is not
to far away. The thing Greenblatt wants to make clear though is the
little pink rabbit has goals of her own, the main one being marrying
Chowder.
“I think Panini is too resilient to be warped by Endive,” says
Greenblatt. “We write her as a very single-minded girl. She wants
Chowder. Cooking isn’t her passion. It’s a means to an end. We’ve given
her a very strong core. She listens to Endive, but only as much as it
suits her needs.”
What’s important though is Greenblatt doesn’t forget the importance of
this being the holiday season. He draws from the past before he puts
his own unique stamp on “Knishmas.”
“You can look at the stop-motion opening of the show and see the
Rankin-Bass Rudolph special right there,” he says. “All the Rankin-Bass
specials affected pretty much everyone I know. That’s a bar I don’t
think any of us will ever be able to touch. There was another one I
really liked--I can’t remember the name--that had a little mouse in a
clock tower and the song “Even a Miracle Needs a Hand.” (Twas The Night Before Christmas--ED).
I loved all the holiday specials when I was a kid, so it’s really a joy
for me to feel like I can do something to add to that canon of shows.”

But, just to say it again, Greenblatt does put his own stamp on this
special. Fans will immediately see it when they see each character’s
clothing. Based on a process developed by master anime director Mahiro
Maeda (who used it in his series Gankutsuou),
the clothes have patterns built into them that move their own way. If
you pay attention to the details, you’ll notice all said patterns have
a particular seasonal theme to them.
“There’s no name for it,” says Greenblatt. “We just call it ‘putting a
pattern in.’ Very original, I know. One of our color stylists had a
book of vintage Christmas wrapping paper. We scanned in a bunch of
those, manipulated them and used them for the holiday special patterns.
I think we were crazier with the patterns in this special than in any
other episode before.”
And does Mung Daal prepare a truly special feast for his team?
“Whatever it was, it would probably end up all burnt and inedible,”
Greenblatt laughs. “We’ve told a lot of stories, so we have to
challenge ourselves to not re-tread the same ground. Each story has to
deepen the characters or enrich their world somehow. It’s fun to keep
discovering more and more about these characters and their
relationships. As long as they feel like they’re alive and growing, I’m
excited to keep doing this.”
X-MAS WITH THE MOUSE
Holiday programming wouldn’t be complete without some word from Disney.
They just shot over what’s definitely planned for their family of
networks.
Toon Disney
It’s called "Toon Disney’s 12 Days of Christmas," a 12 day event
featuring holiday themed movies, specials, and episodes including the
Toon Disney premiere of Mickey’s Christmas Carol. Here’s the schedule
below
DATE TIME PROGRAM TITLE/EPISODE TITLE

Disney Channel:
They’re calling their special programming "Totally New Year." Disney
Channel invites viewers to vote for their favorite episodes, moments
and music videos of 2008 in an online poll at www.DisneyChannel.com.
Beginning Friday, November 28 through Wednesday, December 31. Voting
allows viewers to determine the New Year's Eve programming lineup
entitled "Totally New Year" hosted by Selena Gomez, David Henrie, Jake
T. Austin and Jennifer Stone of "Wizards of Waverly Place," airing
December 31, 6:00 pm-12:30 am (eastern) on the Disney Channel.
Besides a Hannah Montana special, there’s a new edition of The Replacements
called "Dick Daring's All-Star Holiday Stunt Spectacular V." The Daring
family hosts their annual comedy show featuring holiday-themed sketches
and musical numbers with cameo appearances by Ed Begley Jr., Carson
Palmer and Josh Duhamel. Riley is the director, while Todd attempts to
make money by holding his own telethon in Monday, December 8 at 5:00 pm
eastern.
Also coming on Playhouse Disney is the holiday series
"Snow Day Saturdays." Beginning Saturday, December 6 from 6:00
a.m.–Noon eastern. The month-long event will feature holiday and winter
themed episodes of favorite series during the Playhouse Disney
programming block. New episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Imagination Movers and Little Einsteins, and the television premiere of My Friends Tigger & Pooh Super Sleuth Christmas Movie will debut.
The line-up of new holiday themes episodes for Playhouse Disney includes:
• December 6

8:30 am

My Friends Tigger & Pooh Super Sleuth Christmas Movie - Roo
and Lumpy discover Santa's magical toy sack while a young reindeer
named Holly gets lost in the Hundred Acre Wood. They summon the Super
Sleuths to help return the bag and Holly to the North Pole in time to
save Christmas.
10:00 am eastern
Imagination Movers – "Present Problem" - Nina brings over her
holiday gifts for the Movers, but there's a problem – none of the gifts
are labeled. Now the Movers must use their creativity to deduce each
gift's recipient without opening them and ruining the surprise.
• December 13
8:00 am eastern
Little Einsteins – "Flight of the Instrument Fairies" - Quincy
leads the Little Einsteins gang as they blast off on an arctic
adventure to help the little Violin Fairy rescue her fairy friends and
restore the Aurora Borealis to the night sky.
9:00 a.m. eastern
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse – "Pluto to the Rescue!" - When Donald and Goofy
accidentally build a giant snowman that is so big they cannot climb
around it, Mickey and Pluto the Rescue Dog must use their math and
observational skills to help Donald and Goofy get back down from
Mistletoe Mountain.
NEXT COLUMN: There’s a paradigm shift going down in the animation industry, and the web site www.aniBoom.com is part of the reason. Find out why next Tuesday.